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		<title>Appreciative customers &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2017/05-May/12.xhtml&gt;</title>
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		<header>
			<h1>Appreciative customers</h1>
			<p>Day 00797: Friday, 2017 May 12</p>
		</header>
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		The cold water knob on the front sink at my workplace wasn&apos;t working yesterday.
		I assumed someone had shut off the valve, and I was tempted to turn it back on, but didn&apos;t.
		I mean, that wouldn&apos;t be a prank, would it?
		Surely there was a <strong>*reason*</strong> it was disabled?
		Today, the knob was replaced with another.
		The knobs already didn&apos;t match, but now they look ridiculous; it&apos;s quite amusing, actually.
		By the time I noticed, I was clocked on, so I couldn&apos;t photograph it.
		After work though, I forgot.
		Oh well, maybe another time.
		In any case, the knob must&apos;ve been broken before.
		Maybe it wouldn&apos;t turn off or it leaked everywhere from the wrong spot.
		I didn&apos;t ask.
	</p>
	<p>
		One customer came through asking for our &quot;dollar nine deal&quot;.
		Our ... what?
		I interpreted that as a &quot;$1.09 deal&quot;, so I was trying to figure out what we carried that even costs that price.
		All I can come up with is an order of one cup of marinara and one small dip cup.
		Anyway, they later flipped the words and called it a &quot;nine dollar deal&quot;, which was a bit more clear.
		We don&apos;t have anything called that, but we do have one pizza that&apos;s that price.
		I couldn&apos;t recall at the time if we had another pizza at that price too, but we don&apos;t at the moment.
		I asked, and that&apos;s what they wanted.
	</p>
	<p>
		One customer came through, and after ordering, thanked me.
		They said we do a good job and coming&apos;s always a wonderful experience.
		Fantastic!
		That&apos;s what we aim for.
		That was a pleasant contradiction to that customer that claimed they&apos;d get me fired and that other customer that claimed I was rude and that they were never going to eat pizza again.
		I mean, seriously.
		I only politely asked these people to wait at the menu board next time while I complete their order after they rudely pulled forward after having just been asked asked to wait.
		It&apos;s nice to know some people are both reasonable and appreciative of what we do.
	</p>
	<p>
		Corporate sets the standard pricing for our restaurant chain, but individual franchise owners are able to change the prices in their own stores.
		One of the things our franchise owner does is avoid raising the prices of our cheapest pizzas when corporate raises them, but then increases the prices of other menu items to compensate.
		If you&apos;re not vegan and you&apos;re looking for a cheap pizza, our store&apos;s the place to go.
		However, I wouldn&apos;t recommend buying the sodas.
		Anyway, a customer came through saying there was some news article about our stores.
		Apparently, it said we help a lot of low-income families feed themselves.
		That&apos;s pretty cool.
		Now that I think about it more though, our food&apos;s still expensive.
		I mean, not necessarily overpriced and not super expensive, but we do have to pay our workers.
		Eating at a restaurant, even a fast food joint like ours, might not be the best idea if you&apos;re struggling financially.
		Preparing your own meals&apos;ll save you quite a bit.
	</p>
	<p>
		On my way home, I realised it&apos;s Saturday today.
		If I&apos;d thought about it this morning, I might&apos;ve been able to catch my mother at home.
		I should try tomorrow.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I had a strange lucid dream last night.
		I knew I was dreaming, but mostly didn&apos;t do anything with that knowledge besides, for a time, avoid signs that would prove I was dreaming.
		For example, I avoided messing with light switches until near the end.
		Some signs were unavoidable though.
		I felt like my leg movements were restricted, which I used to not understand in dreams, but would be an uncommon occurrence.
		I later realised it was my waking legs being restricted by my mattress and blankets and that restriction being transferred to the dream world, and since then, have been able to use it as an indicator that I must be dreaming.
		I got that same sensation in my shoulder in addition to my legs this time too though, the first time I&apos;ve ever had the feeling outside my legs.
		It was painful though.
		I was laying on my shoulder in a bad position.
		I tried to move my real-world shoulder to a better position while also trying very hard not to wake up or leave the dream, but I don&apos;t recall whether I actually got my shoulder to move.
		Additionally, I noticed that my sense of touch and pain, while still present, were hugely dulled.
		Almost like ... they weren&apos;t real, because they weren&apos;t.
		This is the first time I can remember actually being aware of the fact that my sense of touch and pain aren&apos;t as strong as they would be in the waking world, though perhaps all dreams have always been like this for me.
		I&apos;ll have to try to watch for this in future lucid dreams.
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t recall the beginning of my dream, but at some point, I was walking home at night.
		Now that I&apos;m awake, I realise I was heading &quot;home&quot; in entirely the wrong direction, but in the dream, I wasn&apos;t.
		I was in the parking lot near Mohawk, the one with Bi-Mart, Taco Bell, and one of the bars.
		(Sonny&apos;s Tavern, maybe?
		I don&apos;t recall the name, but I can picture the outside of the bar.)
		I didn&apos;t notice the bar or Taco Bell, but between where Taco Bell should have been and Bi-Mart, there stood an Arby&apos;s that doesn&apos;t exist in the real world.
		I highly suspected to be dreaming, but was still trying to deny it at this point.
		I just wanted to make it to Arby&apos;s and buy some curly fries.
		There was a closed carnival in the way though; no way around, yet Arby&apos;s was still open for business.
		Some security guards patrolled, trying to keep everyone out of the carnival, but I managed to sneak by them unnoticed.
		At least, until the end of the maze of chain link fences.
		The final fence was without regular gates, but had a strange corner designed as a separate, hinged piece.
		I tried to make it through, but the leg restrictions came into effect again, slowing me down long enough to get caught.
		It should&apos;ve been a quick slip-through and I&apos;d be at Arby&apos;s, but I was half-way through.
		The guard caught me and the carnival owner came to talk to me.
		They weren&apos;t mad I was in the carnival at night while it was closed.
		Rather, they were mad I was skipping the carnival food to reach Arby&apos;s!
		They tried to get convince me to buy &quot;carnival fries&quot; (which looked like normal, straight-cut fries) instead of the curly fries.
		I really wanted those curly fries though, so I pretended I was easily convinced and wanted the carnival fries now, but they didn&apos;t buy my act and wouldn&apos;t let go.
		I also claimed to want carnival popcorn, but though I now struggled in the direction of the carnival food, they still knew I only wanted to escape to reach Arby&apos;s.
	</p>
	<p>
		At some point, I must&apos;ve escaped, though I never made it to Arby&apos;s, as I was in another building I didn&apos;t recognise.
		It was still night though.
		Now, near the end of the dream, I tried a light switch, which partly functioned.
		I used to use the light switch trick all the time to tell if I was dreaming, and my subconscious must not&apos;ve liked that, as it years ago learned how to make light switches mostly function in dreams (they used to do nothing at all).
		However, the resulting simulation is still a bit imperfect.
		This time, the light fixture itself went off, but the highlight on the light fixture remained, which would be impossible with the light off.
		I think I recall seeing a reflection on another object being wrong.
		Trying to correct the error, my subconscious made the light fixture flash blue and green spots rapidly, as if there were a bunch of flashy, coloured <abbr title="light-emitting diode">LED</abbr>s in it.
		As if I&apos;d buy that.
		Sure, it covered up the highlight, but not until after I&apos;d seen it for a good second couple seconds.
		I then glanced at a digital clock and saw that acting up as well, lighting up its digit segments in strange combinations that didn&apos;t make actual digits and changing them a couple times per second.
		Lastly, I found a way to enter a secondary dream world through books.
		By reading the book, I&apos;d reach another layer of the dream, and in-dream, I was referring to them as the first and second layer, fully aware I was still dreaming.
		I don&apos;t recall any events from the second layer though.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve started drafting both my main discussion post for the week and my <a href="/en/coursework/HIST1421/#Unit6">learning journal entry</a>.
	</p>
</section>
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